Ethics Hero: Criminal Defense Lawyer/Blogger Scott Greenfield
Scott Greenfield’s post yesterday on his blog Simple Justice was fortuitous, coming as it did shortly after my musings (item #2) about a trusted and respected legal ethics colleague whose ugly past ethical breach I only recently learned about. Greenfield isn’t quite discussing the same issue—my dilemma involves trusting someone’s judgment and integrity, his involves pure friendship—but his post is helpful nonetheless, and admirable.
In fact, it reminds me of my father.
Keep Talking And Tweeting, Sam: Eventually Almost Everybody Will Figure Out That You’re Ridiculous…Won’t They?
Biased, Trump-Deranged and stupid is no way to be a philosopher, Sam.
Before last week I was happily unaware of the existence of inexplicably influential woke philosopher and “best-selling author” Sam Harris. Then, in rapid succession, he endorsed journalistic malpractice and “ends justify the means” tactics to manipulate a national election, declared that Osama bin Laden was the salt of the earth compared to Donald Trump, and now he’s unleashed the demented tweet above.
That might be the most outrageous of the three, which is saying something. What kind of logic is that? It’s super-projection on steroids, as far as I can determine. X does something offensive and unethical to attack Y, and the defense is, “Yeah, but what X did is what Y is really like! I just know it!”
Oh.
Good point.
It isn’t just making that crazy statement that is evidence of cognitive malfunction; it’s publishing it and assuming that people not similarly impaired won’t react by deciding the writer is a lunatic.
Harris is one of those pseudo celebrities who makes me wonder where I went wrong. Clearly, writing and saying trendy, woke-pandering nonsense is a better formula for success than honestly trying to do the hard work of clarifying and bolstering societal values.
Of COURSE Trump Having All Those Documents At Mar-A-Largo Was Unethical…Is Anyone Seriously Confused About That?
Well, maybe Donald Trump. But definitely not Ethics Alarms.
At the Washington Examiner, editor and columnist Quin Hillyer writes that…
Former President Donald Trump’s defenders in the matter of the Mar-a-Lago documents controversy are defending the indefensible. Forget the legalities: For the sake of (spurious) argument, let’s stipulate that somehow Trump can concoct some looking-glass version of a legal argument that justifies his “authority” to do with the documents as he did. The point is that even if it was technically legal, it was wrong, wrong, wrong.
Heck, I’ll go farther than that; this is the proverbial low-hanging fruit. Donald Trump doesn’t know what ethics is: never has, never will. He decides what is “right” according to some secret personal algorithm that changes daily so it can’t be stolen, or something. His lifting government documents and storing them at his home without authorization after he had left office is as indefensible as any time an ex-employee takes property from the workplace home. Funny, I didn’t think that was even worth writing about; I do try to avoid the obvious here as often as possible.
Further Notes And Observations On President Biden’s “Soul Of The Nation” Speech
No, this doesn’t rate “ethics train wreck” status. The horrible episode was already hooked up to two ongoing ethics train wrecks: the extinction level 2016 Post Election Ethics Train Wreck, and its subordinate Biden Presidency Ethics Train Wreck. Moreover, Biden’s speech has some very positive aspects to it which are becoming immediately apparent. Those who praise it are outing themselves as hopelessly, cripplingly biased, ethically short-circuited and ready to embrace totalitarianism. Journalists who rationalize it are proving the critics of their rotted profession correct. This is all useful information, if depressing.
The speech also exposed the desperation and complete corruption of the Democratic Party for anyone to see who isn’t in an ethics coma. The smoking gun: the fact that Biden and Democrats began denying that Biden said what he said less than a day after he said it, and said it in a carefully (if stupidly) prepared and choreographed production framed as a major Presidential address. This exchange…
Fox News’ Peter Doocy: “Do you consider all Trump supporters to be a threat to the country?”
Biden: “I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country.”
…was not only a Jumbo, as Ethics Alarms declared last night, but as Professor Jacobson points out, one that makes the vocal knee-jerk supporters of the speech look like the unprincipled toadies they are. He writes, “I bet you thought there was nothing so pathetic as Joe “Wartime President” Biden’s hateful, lunatic, insane, demeaning, and otherwise civil-warish speech last night….Biden was categorical – “MAGA Republicans are a threat.” Immediately, the usual media and Never-Trump sychophants jumped on board with high praise of this eliminationist rhetoric. Guess what? Joe “Where Am I?” Biden just threw them all under the bus by walking back his comments. No, of course he didn’t mean to say that all MAGA-voters were a threat to the nation….” Continue reading
The President Scores A Jumbo!
And it’s a really funny Jumbo, almost as funny as Jimmy’s (“Elephant? What elephant?”), if you ignore how sad, scary and pathetic Biden saying that now is.
Biden last night: “Donald Trump and the MAGA Republicans represent an extremism that threatens the very foundations of our Republic.”
Biden today: “I don’t consider any Trump supporter a threat to the country.”
Divisive rhetoric? What divisive rhetoric?”
Ah, so many things jump into my fevered brain…
Labor Day Weekend Ethics Warm-Up, 9/2/2022: Which Are The Pod People And Which Are The Fascists?
1. More on Biden’s speech…I finally read the text of President Biden’s speech; it was even worse than I expected. What kind of advisors would let a President make such a speech? What kind of President would deliver it rather than fire the speechwriter and whoever advocated saying such stuff in public? It says something significant about the distribution of partisan extremism in the media that CNN and MSNBC would be the only networks to broadcast it, yet, ironically, as true blue propagandists, they should have embargoed the speech for their party’s own good. Fox News should have wanted to broadcast it. It’s the best marketing for the Republican Party I’ve ever seen.
Because there is, as the saying goes, no reason to re-invent the wheel, I’m going to send you over to Althouse for her section-by-section analysis, which is close enough to mine to make a parallel post here a waste of time. A sample:
There are far more Americans, far more Americans from every background and belief, who reject the extreme MAGA ideology than those that accept it.His version of the soul of America represents what “far more” Americans think, so — what? — screw those other people? Something like 47% of voters voted for Trump, but even if the Trump voters were more dramatically overwhelmed by throngs of more “normal” people, they are still part of the population. Or maybe it’s not about excluding everyone who’s not in the majority. Maybe it’s about rejecting them because they have “extreme MAGA ideology.” What is “extreme MAGA ideology”? Desire for a secure border? Pro-life? Really, what are the elements that Biden envisions as not worthy of debate but justifying denouncement as not normal and not mainstream?
And folks, it’s within our power, it’s in our hands, yours and mine, to stop the assault on American democracy….It seems to me that it’s within our power to participate in democracy and vote. Where is this “assault”? Why in the name of all that is normal and mainstream is he conjuring up violence — an “assault”? It’s going on right now. Don’t you see it? The “assault” I see is the effort to keep Donald Trump from running again. If the overwhelming majority of Americans reject his “extreme MAGA ideology,” what’s the problem? Let him run and he will be defeated.
Ann calls the speech “disturbing and incoherent.” I’d call it dangerous and irresponsible. Continue reading
It’s…. Open Forum Time!
I suspect that there are a lot of ethics topics to discuss.
Of course, I could be wrong…
Ethics Quote Of The Month: Ann Althouse On Biden’s Speech Last Night
“I can sum it up in 7 words: We the People, but not you people.”
—–Allegedly non-partisan blogger Ann Althouse (she’s a Democrat), providing a preview of her soon to be posted review of Biden’s “soul of the nation” speech.
As soon as I read that Biden was going to give a prime-time speech on the peril to the “soul of the nation,” I knew exactly what was coming, what motivated it (panic and desperation, plus terrible advisers), and what it would be: the ultimate IIPTDXTTNMIAFB.
And wildly unethical, of course: irresponsible, disrespectful, unfair, and un-American, as well as hypocritical, indeed a betrayal, from a leader who promised on his Inaugeration Day, “We can join forces, stop the shouting and lower the temperature. For without unity there is no peace, only bitterness and fury. No progress, only exhausting outrage. No nation, only a state of chaos. This is our historic moment of crisis and challenge, and unity is the path forward.”
Was I wrong?
I haven’t read the various pundits about the speech yet, and I haven’t read the text yet; I have a doctor’s appointment and I don’t want to be nauseous. I am curious about whether any of the usual Biden cheer-leaders will have the integrity to state the obvious, and what was obvious the second the speech was announced. This is deliberate divisiveness. It is the essence of totalitarian messaging; it is more fascist in intent and substance than anything Donald Trump ever did or said.
Welcome September Ethics Warm-Up, Sept. 1, 2022: Developing Stories For The Fall…
Haven’t heard from Jimmy for a while…my late father’s favorite performer. (I liked him a lot too; still do.)
August 2022 was a rotten month ethically, for the nation, business-wise, for my family, for the Red Sox. I’m glad to see it go.
The opinion of national security law expert Bradley Moss after analyzing the DOJ’s filing in the Mar-a-Lago documents case is that Trump illegally retained classified documents, delayed, obstructed and resisted government efforts to recover them, and concealed the records from investigators, or at least there is enough evidence of that to support an indictment. Yet unnamed sources are telling reporters that “under DOJ policy, no investigative steps will be taken 60 days before an election,” which would be September 10 this year, so if they are going to indict, they better hustle.
Of course, they won’t. They didn’t even hustle in raiding Trump’s abode, though supposedly doing so was a matter of national security. But Donald Trump is not a public official, nor is he a political candidate in the 2018 election for any office. That alleged policy shouldn’t be a factor at all, unless the Biden Justice Department thinks that indicting Trump will mean more Republican votes. A policy directive issued in 2012 states, “[l]aw enforcement officers and prosecutors may never select the timing of investigative steps or criminal charges for the purpose of affecting any election, or for the purpose of giving an advantage or disadvantage to any candidate or political party.” Well, delaying indicting him or indicting him would both violate this guideline. It is how Obama’s Justice Department managed to look like it was gaming the election regarding Hillary Clinton, not that it would ever do such a thing intentionally.
If Justice has the goods and the guts, then the ethical thing is to indict the former President now. Imagine if John Roberts had announced that the Supreme Court would hold off on its Dobbs decision until after the November elections.
1. Following this story: Indiana University Northwest in Gary fired Mark McPhail, a tenured professor of communication who was the institution’s chief academic officer, in 2021. An administrator accused McPhail of having said “the solution to racism is to kill all white people.” Yes, McPhail is black. The American Association of University Professors announced this week that it is investigating Indiana University because the school “terminated his appointment based on allegations of misconduct that Prof. McPhail sharply denies, contending that the administration acted in retaliation for his outspoken criticism of the institution, including formal and informal complaints about discrimination and racial inequity on campus.” AAUP standards on tenure require that dismissal for cause must be preceded by an adjudicative hearing before an elected faculty body. McPhail was allegedly terminated without such due process.
Then another metaphorical shoe dropped: the ex-professor was appointed interim provost of Linfield University in McMinnville, Oregon, which is passing strange when the new hire is battling claims that he wants to kill white people. But this is Oregon, so there’s that. Linfield has its own problems. Its administration has been fighting with its faculty after the school abruptly terminated a tenured Jewish professor last year following his tweets calling out the university’s handing of sexual-misconduct allegations against several members of the board. About that: after sexual abuse charges were made by students against a former trustee in 2020, faculty members voted 88 to 18 on a motion of no confidence in David C. Baca, the chair of the college’s board of trustees.The board continued to support Baca. An outside agency is investigating another claim , this one by a faculty member, of “inappropriate touching” by two trustees.
Ethics Alarms 
Extradimensional Cephalopod might break an Ethics Alarms record today with three COTDs—I’m not sure yet: stay tuned. This one the earliest of the three, includes his cogent analysis of ranked choice voting systems, which I am on record as hating. As I have learned more about the Democrats donating to the nuttier Trump-endorsed Republicans in state primary contests, my hatred is even more entrenched. The more opportunities a system creates to game it, the less trustworthy it is. In my view, ranked choice voting asks the voter to try to game the system. Count me out.
Here is EC’s Comment of the Day on the Alaska special election item in “Labor Day Weekend Ethics Warm-Up, 9/2/2022: Which Are The Pod People And Which Are The Fascists?”
***
At first I took issue with your characterization of the Alaska election, on the basis that ranked choice voting would have removed the spoiler effect. However, I realized that’s not quite true.
Under first-past-the-post voting, if 60% of voters preferred the Republican party but were evenly split across two Republican candidates, then the Democratic candidate would have won with a 40% plurality.
In the same scenario but with ranked choice voting, one of the Republicans would have been eliminated and their votes would have gone to the other Republican candidate, who would have won. In that situation a Republican wins, just like in the FPTP scenario, but also the Republican voters get to vote on which Republican wins without risking their party losing. That is, if they all have a Republican as their second choice.
Continue reading →